


Love Is a Doing Word

by traincar



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Limbo, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Limbo, M/M, Separation Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traincar/pseuds/traincar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mallorie Cobb plays a pivotal role in her own demise. She is lovely and deceitful and too curious for her own good, particularly after Arthur and Eames spend a lifetime in limbo. Maybe all she wants is what they have, even if they don't want it for themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is a Doing Word

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am this person of whom somehow you are never wholly rid (and who does not ask for more than just enough dreams to live on).  
> \- e.e. cummings

It begins with an ocean.

When Arthur wakes on the shore, he finds his clothes too wet and covered in sand. When he stands up, his limbs feel heavy. There’s a sandcastle to his left and he’s not sure how it got there. This is no place from memory. To Arthur, every ocean looks relatively the same, but here the waves are how he always wanted them to be as a boy. Crystal clear and forceful. 

He wants to panic. Honestly, he wants to be scared shitless. He knows what Limbo is, of course, because Eames had told him. Eames had said nothing is down there and then he’d said Jesus, nothing at all. It had taken a long time for Arthur to process it. He had thought to himself about dying in the real world, how he always thought you’d just float away into nothingness. This was just as serene. 

Arthur narrows his eyes against the blinding light of the sun, feeling the heat of it against his face. He can’t see anyone or anything, but he knows that he’s not alone.

“Eames!” He calls out.

Nothing.

He walks. When he ends up far enough away from the shore, he instinctively cups his hand around his ear to hear the waves.

*

The real beginning of it all had been the job. It had unfolded like a book, with a prologue and first chapter telling only of success. There was, of course, the little twist halfway through and the bad ending. Limbo. They’d gotten there with the bad combination of a faulty compound and too much sedation. (And, of course, the trap set up by Cobol, but Arthur can’t bear to think of how stupid he was.) Eames had gotten shot first. The projections had left him with a stomach wound that caused him to die very, very slowly. Arthur had graciously kept pressure on the wound until Eames had gone cold and lifeless. The rest of the team was in danger and his priority was completing the job, not Eames. So he left. He got up and he ran and he pushed through the fogginess of his own mind.

He’d been keeping watch while the other dreamers went down a second level before the dream had started to collapse. The buildings had shaken and the sky had turned a molten red. A pillar had crushed him and that was it.

He had died almost instantly, but there was that little fraction of time wedged in between the agony and the fear that he was not dreaming that stuck with him through it all. Eames had been only feet away, his hands smeared with blood and his fingers limp and cold. And it had only take a millisecond of time for Arthur to realize he never wanted to see that again.

*

They meet up in the middle of their own city. It doesn’t work at first. Eames builds these beautiful, impossibly grand designs. Archways and colors and towers. Arthur procures cathedrals and subtly magnificent castles. The city is a complete mess and the two of them are heavy and languid with the weighted fear of being stuck here forever.

But then Eames takes the plunge and kisses him, hard. So hard he can feel his lips flushing pink and his hands white-knuckled. The rush of waves is against his ears and his heart is pounding so fast he thinks it might claw its way out. 

Eames says something unintelligible but Arthur doesn’t ask him to repeat it. He flattens Eames’ shirt against his palms and walks away. 

Somewhere in the midst of all this, it begins to rain.

*

( The first time Arthur watches Mal build, he’s only curious enough to see if her creations are as beautiful as she is. Somehow, though he doesn’t understand her, he admires her. There’s something about the way she simply doesn’t care that Arthur envies. She’s selfish, but not overtly so. She just does what she needs to. And, most of the time, it results in her getting what she wants. )

*

It turns, very quickly, into something more than companionship. They are a little bit desperate and very tipsy on the idea of spending an eternity together. It is more of a fascination that hooks them in than the sad tragedy of a lonely life. After three decades, Eames is insistent and Arthur is constant. Sometimes they spend their evenings together on the porch in silence. After four decades, they are fully gray and coiled tightly with the fondness of memories. “I would cut out my eyes for you,” Eames says one night. “I would cut out my eyes like Oedipus, only for you.”

They needn’t be blind to be foolishly naïve, but when Arthur sleeps, he doesn’t even see the flashes of color behind his eyelids.

*

At four and a half decades, there is a tearing sound outside. There’s the quick and stuttered drag of ripping fabric and two needles nestled somewhere along the edges. It is the most unpleasant thing Arthur has suffered through and the worst wound Eames has experienced.

They wake up in two separate beds in a yellow-painted room.

Arthur sits up, his eyes stinging and his hands shaking. He stares at Eames desperately, waiting for that defining moment to stick them together like glue. It happens. Arthur knew it would happen this way. He climbs into Eames’ bed, watching him close his eyes in defiance. 

“Did we –“ Arthur starts, at the same time Eames says, “check your totem.”

It’s on the bedside table. He gets up to retrieve it and slides back in. “I’m awake. We. We’re awake.” 

“Fuck,” Eames mutters, dragging a hand across his lips. “Oh fuck, Arthur.”

“How long?” Arthur asks, his breath hitching. He thinks he should go find someone, see where they are, figure out if there is anyone here waiting for them with bated breath.  
He starts to get up before Eames can answer.

“Oh god,” Eames says, struggling against his own words as he sits up. “God, Arthur, don’t go.”

Arthur hovers by the end of the bed like a cat, ready to pounce and far too graceful in this situation. 

“Don’t make me say it twice, fucksake,” Eames whispers.

He doesn’t.

*

( Before Eames, Mal was simply a girl. She acted like a child and Arthur didn’t like her. He spent his time with her because Dom was his friend, and that was how it worked. It evolves, of course, into something more tolerable, as it always does. And soon, Arthur’s interest in Mal is very genuine. But she is still a mystery to him, something right there but far from tangible. Like a prayer on a child’s lips. Or a ghost. Perhaps Arthur will think back on this one day and realize that being a ghost is everything Mal could have ever wanted. )

*

They’re pressed together on the subway a month later. It smells like urine and garbage and fast food. There’s a deafening roar of the car rattling along on the tracks and the tunnel lights are flashing like the big, blinking eyes of an owl.

“You’re an idiot,” Eames mutters.

Arthur is a fool. Eames has never found anything romantic about nearly getting yourself killed over a spreadsheet.

That’s not to say he doesn’t appreciate it.

The subway lurches forward and Arthur very nearly loses his balance. Eames digs his fingers into his back to steady him and Arthur thinks of when they used to want things like this: four red lines along the curve of a spine and a pattern of bruises on hips.

“You could have died,” Eames adds. “What would we have done then?”

It’s horrifying the way Eames says things sometimes. What would they have done?

*

Eames tosses their Metro tickets on the bedside table and pulls out a pack of cigarettes from the drawer. For a moment or two, he keeps a hand in Arthur’s and simply smokes. Quietly, he sets the cigarette in a notch of the ashtray, rubs a hand over his face.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Arthur, fuck, the dream.” He pulls off his jacket and presses Arthur down on the bed. They’re shaking, both of them. Arthur can feel the tension thrumming through Eames’ body like some kind of parasite, gnawing away at the tough exterior he’d built for himself over the years. He’s a hermit crab with no shell and he’s hiding in Arthur’s now. He isn’t unwelcome. He never will be. “We were dreaming. I- the job, you had to finish it, Arthur, can you remember– Arthur, damnit, Arthur – “

They fuck because they need to. 

Arthur breathes in the smell of Eames’ cigarette and listens to the background noise from the TV. Eames lies next to him, completely still, one arm draped over Arthur’s stomach and the other under the covers. 

“I never wanted this,” Eames says. He moves closer, his lips centimeters away from Arthur’s. “I never fucking wanted this.” 

Arthur kisses him, hard, only does it because they need it. They’ll always need it. He’s sore and tired and agonizingly sated, and the TV behind them is going on about a war. They could die this way, he thinks, attached in a way they shouldn’t be, unnaturally twisted into lovers. “Neither did I,” he admits. 

He takes Eames’ cigarette with his lips, sucks in the smoke until he feels like he can’t breathe and lets it burn against his lungs.

*

Cobb calls a lot. For the first few days, he had lingered around the apartment and tried to make himself busy. But Cobb never knows what to do with his hands, so he had simply sat on the couch and tried to be supportive. They didn’t need support, of course, because they had each other. This is what Cobb hadn’t understood.

He drops by again because he wants to talk, he says. He wants to talk about what happened. He sits silently in the living room for what feels like hours.

“Being in Limbo for that long…” Cobb finally says, “…can be damaging. Mal and I have researched it. Some people mix dreams and reality. But you two have created a different reality altogether.” 

Arthur is leaning against Eames’ chest and Eames has his fingers buried in his hair. The tug and pull of it nearly puts him to sleep. There’s a sense of fear in what might happen if he does. There always is, these days. That fear of sleeping and waking to an empty bed. It nauseates him.

“This isn’t how you were,” Cobb insists. “It isn’t healthy.”

Arthur’s up before he knows what’s happening. Eames doesn’t even let him take a step without staying within a shadow’s length. 

“You two need to let go of each other. I know it’s hard, but it isn’t—“

“Fuck you,” Arthur spits, and punches Cobb in the face.

For what it’s worth, he would have rather punched Eames, just so he’d be touching him at all.

*

It takes another week for even them to talk about it.

Eames closes the gap between them on the bed and lights a cigarette, tracing imaginary shapes over Arthur’s back. “Don’t you find it awful,” Eames asks, drawing loops along the length of Arthur’s spine, “that we’re like this?” It is odd, now that Eames really thinks about it, that they’ve just been carrying on this way. It’s almost frightening – perhaps that’s the right word.

“I hate us for it,” Arthur says. “Cobb is right – it isn’t healthy.”

“I remember all of it. Every day. Every - you know, whatever measure of time is down there.” Eames blows out a puff of smoke, his fingers still twirling over the expanse of Arthur’s back. He traces out an ‘L,’ then an ‘I,’ then and ‘M,’ and keeps going. “I remember how much I wanted to be with you, back then. You were such a prick sometimes, but I still wanted to fuck you. I wanted to get so close to you that I couldn’t get any closer. And it happened. It did, Arthur. We got too close. I wanted you too bad, I think. I think I was the one who did this.”

Eames’ fingers still and he reaches over to tap the cigarette along the edge of the ashtray. “When we first met, I thought it’d be all good and well, you know? I thought it’d be fun to teach you, to show you what possibilities the mind held. I shouldn’t have listened to Mal. You know she’s a sneaky thing. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard to be with you.”

Arthur’s next breath stutters, like he doesn’t know how to let it out properly. “But I let you,” he says. “No matter how much one of us wanted it, the other let it happen. I think I wanted you more.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Fuck it,” Eames snorts, putting the cigarette out. There’s a flash of some emotion across his face that Arthur has seen too much of lately. There’s some kind of sadness, some agony that just keeps pressing down, waiting for something to snap. “We aren’t like that now.”

“We can try to be,” Arthur says, sitting up. He can feel the pressure of disappointment choking him. This is grief, he thinks. This is grief and he hates it. “We have the PASIV.”

Eames wants so badly to say yes. “We can’t, Arthur,” he breathes. “It won’t be the same, even if we try.”

Arthur turns, tells himself he’s going to sleep and he doesn’t need Eames at his back to do so. 

But he does. He does, he does, he does. God help him, he does.

*

It takes the better part of three months until they can stand on their own feet. Mal watches them with a quiet curiosity that Arthur can swear he feels in his fucking bones. Her solution is to be the devil. She’s devious and awful and Arthur gets so mad at her sometimes he starts hating her.

She says “Eames, I need you to steal something for me.” She says “Arthur will stay here with us while you get it. I’ll give you all the information you need.”

And Eames goes. Eames is the one who keeps pushing away. Eames is the one who tells him one night that they need to get over this. That they can’t love each other at all. That it’s wrong because it isn’t authentic. Eames says to him, “If I tell you not to think of elephants, what do you think of?”

Arthur says elephants, Eames, and then don’t leave me and Eames books his flight and goes.

Arthur hates him too, some days. And he hates himself for wanting him so badly through it all. 

*

( A year ago, Mal had brought the three of them to Paris to visit her father. Eames hadn’t been in the picture at the time. This doesn't matter much, but Arthur remembers that detail the best. Mal had shown them everything beautiful and everything close enough to it. There had been this lovely, magnificent sunset and Mal had walked along the side of a busy street just to chase the sun. Dom had watched her quietly, reverently, tracing her footsteps with his own. And just behind him, Arthur followed suit. They had looked like a parade of ducklings, perhaps, or a family of wild, free-faring lions. Wild enough to go on the adventure but smart enough not to make too much noise.

Miles had greeted the three of them with the notion that he’d heard plenty of good things. Sometime in the middle of their meeting, he’d pulled Mal aside and told her not to say a word about dreaming. Not to spoil the good fun and surprise. And Mal had ignored him and said, “Do you like Dom? I’m going to marry him one day.” )

*

Four days after Eames leaves, he’s back. He isn’t supposed to be, but he is. And Arthur can’t rid himself of the lump in his throat because fuck he missed him. It takes him a while to keep himself from reaching out. He nods mutely, waits until Dom takes the lead and asks if Eames had any difficulty retrieving the item.

Mal watches Eames’ face curiously. She’s sitting elegantly on the couch, her hands folded in her lap as if she’d been expecting Eames’ arrival the whole time. “He had much trouble,” she coos. “Didn’t you, Eames?”

Arthur stares helplessly as Eames’ nostrils flare just a bit. He inches closer. 

“Of course I did,” Eames snarls. “You had the bloody thing the whole time, didn’t you?”

Mal reaches over and holds up a vase from the end table. “I might have,” she admits deviously.

She’s smiling. That’s the first thing Arthur sees when he looks at her. Her eyes are lit up and her lips are quirked and he hates her. He hates her, he hates her. Eames went halfway around the world for nothing and Arthur was here the whole goddamn time for no reason at all.

Eames yells at the same time he does, and the sound of their clashing voices makes Arthur jump. Mal remains both poised and thoughtful. 

“How much time did you two spend together?” She asks. “When you were in Limbo?”

Arthur narrows his eyes, the memory of it too sharp and simply too much.

“All of it,” Eames says, no longer upset. Arthur drops the tense position of his shoulders when Eames’ arm snakes its way around his back, too content to be angry.

*

That night, they barely speak.

“She had it the whole time,” Eames mumbles. He shoves the butt of the cigarette in the ashtray and sits down. Arthur wants to reach out and touch him. He wants to kiss him and remind him that even if Limbo wasn’t real, it still happened. (God, it still happened.)

He tugs Eames’ arm until they’re lying next to each other. The sun hasn’t even set yet, but Arthur could sleep right now and be fine. Perhaps this is Eames’ doing. He is willing to do anything so long as Eames is there. 

Eames leans into him, blows the smoke out from his cigarette and Arthur wants to choke on it.

“You’re thinking about elephants,” Eames whispers, and pushes away.

They don’t sleep together that night.

And Arthur doesn’t sleep at all. Not really, anyway.

*

Philippa is an accident on Dom’s part. It doesn’t mean he’ll love her any less, but he certainly isn’t ready for a child. Mal, on the other hand, is fiercely insistent on starting a family. She’s aggressively in love with everything. They don’t know it yet, but she is fanning the flames of her own cremation.

She breaks the news a week after Eames leaves again.

“Dom and I are going to have a baby,” she says, out of the blue. They’re in the middle of a dinner that Mal has cooked herself (she’s a mother now, she needs to know these things) and Arthur drops his fork because his hands feel shaky. Mal is having a baby. Mal and Dom are having a baby. They don’t discuss it after that. In fact, there will be a time when Arthur will look back on Mal’s pregnancy and realize she never spoke of it at all. And he never asked.

Right now, Arthur sits in their living room while Dom washes the dishes. Mal sits next to him and asks him. She just asks him flat-out what it was like in Limbo. It’s wrong. Arthur feels an itch along his spine, pushing through his chest until he realizes just how badly he wants Eames next to him. Even if he hates him sometimes. Even if he hates himself for it.

“We fell in love. Or something like it,” Arthur whispers. “And we just didn’t look back. We couldn’t.”

“And then you woke up,” Mal adds. Her eyes focus on some spot on the wall, some imaginary bug stretching its legs before a jump. “You two were lovers.”

Arthur closes his eyes, squeezes them shut to make himself see fireworks, to lose himself in the tiny blips of light behind his eyelids. 

“Two halves of a whole,” he says, and when he opens his eyes, Mal is watching him curiously.

*

Some time ago, Eames had been the one to teach them. He was fresh out of the military and Arthur had just finished college. Eames was exciting then. More exciting than he’s ever been. He was Miles’ protégé at the time, and maybe Mal resented that a little. But Eames had promised her something worth looking into and, reluctantly, she’d brought Dom and Arthur along. 

The introductions had been brief. Everything had been brief, then. They drank for two short hours while Eames elaborated on the functions of the PASIV and things went just as quickly when Arthur and Eames fucked that first night. It was more a game than real interest, at the time. It was more start running to see if I’ll follow than anything else.

Eames ran.

And Arthur followed.

Sometime in the midst of all this, they’d grown a bit drunk on the idea of dreaming. They would take the PASIV anywhere and everywhere. For Arthur, it was like getting to know an old friend. He’d had his encounters with dreamsharing technology before, but nothing like this. Nothing like building whole worlds and creating magic with thoughts.

Back then, it had been an adventure. Back then, it had been the thrill of the touch-and-go spontaneity that had kept them together. That had been authentic. Back then, they had thought of elephants because they wanted to, not because something made them.

Eames had brought the world to them, but it was Mal who pushed them into it.

“What happens if you die in a dream?” Mal had asked. And Eames, too adventurous for his own good, had said “let’s find out.”

And they did. And this is why Arthur hates Eames sometimes.

This is also why he loves him, coincidentally. 

 

*

When Mal is some months into her pregnancy, they start working again. They could all use the money, particularly Dom, and Mal is willing to watch over them while they dream.

But this, this is the first time Arthur’s gone under for a test run since Limbo. Eames, too. They hook each other up to their IVs and don’t speak. But right before Mal pushes the button, Eames reaches over and squeezes his hand, and Arthur hopes he’ll wake up holding it.

In the dream, they build. Dom is raising buildings up from the ground, making them appear as real as he can. He’s in his element here. He’s doing his best work and they all know it.

Arthur wanders through the park Dom’s created, finding a beaten up old guitar on the ground. He picks it up, brushes the dirt off, and strums. He can’t play well. He never could. But a few times in college he’d made it appear that way. 

Mal appears as a projection. She isn’t pregnant here. She’s twenty again and the only thing she’s curious about is her own life. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks. “Dom is in the city.”

“I want you to tell me about Limbo,” she says, pushing her sunglasses atop her head. She smiles, young and beautiful and still a mystery. Arthur’s well-versed in the ways of Mal by now, but she will always remain a mystery. She is a bundle of loose ends and everyone around her reaches for them to no avail. Even Arthur. Stupid, silly Arthur.

Arthur strums, working his fingers through scales and chords. “I can’t talk about that, Mal,” he says simply. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Aren’t I?” Mal says, though she wanders off all the same.

It’s in the way her head is tilted down that throws Arthur off. As if she can’t support herself anymore. Something is missing, he thinks. 

As it is, Eames is still holding his hand when he wakes up, and while nobody says anything, Mal’s stare speaks volumes.

*

It doesn’t take long after Philippa is born for Mal to want to dream again. She sets the PASIV down on the couch and, without asking, Dom sits on the other side of it. 

Arthur’s there, too. And he doesn’t even know why. He doesn’t want to be here. Not at all. But Eames refused to go so Arthur went instead. He took the bait. There’s a sinking feeling in his gut and his heart is beating just a little too fast. 

“Sit,” Mal says. And when he doesn’t, she says sit, Arthur, mon cher, please. And Arthur listens. He loves Mal. He’s learned to love what she represents a little more, though. 

“I want you to go under with us,” she explains. “And I want you to show us what Limbo was like. It’s experimental, of course. It’s just for reference.”

“No.”

“It’s for reference,” Mal says again, this time a little more forcefully. She’s desperate. Arthur knows what’s happening now. He feels sick to his stomach and an overwhelming sense of guilt. 

He stands up on shaky legs. “No,” he says again. “You can’t do that to yourself, Mal.”

Dom looks up. “Do what?”

“I can’t,” Arthur says. He walks and walks and walks until he’s out of that goddamn house. Until Mal is nothing but a ghost for the time being. He gets in his car and he drives and he does not look back.

But he could swear he hears Mal yelling for him even miles away.

 

*

Not unkindly, it’s Mal who apologizes and calls him up for a drink. She tells him to bring Eames (who's back, thank God) and an empty stomach, and Arthur listens. Deep down, he knows he might be making a mistake in all of this. It’s still a little unnerving to him to not spend the day having Eames fuck him senseless into the mattress. 

He shows up with Eames in tow at the bar they used to frequent what feels like lifetimes ago. And that’s it, isn’t it? It was a lifetime ago for Arthur and Eames. Many, many jumps and leaps across boundaries that never should have been touched and this is where it’s brought them. Back to their roots without the sun-kissed faces and a lot more desperation. 

Eames sips quietly at his beer, looping his finger around the neck of the bottle.

“Arthur,” he calls, not even looking over his shoulder. “Come here, please.”

Arthur slides into the seat next to him and leans in, pulling at the cuff of Eames’ button-down. “Hm?”

“Just sit,” he says. He doesn’t have to say anything else. Arthur knows what it is. He can feel it in his gut, too. That lingering suspicion that every time you look away, something’s there. 

Mal comes up behind the both of them, drops her head to each of their shoulders and sighs. She smells like a mix of her perfume and Dom’s cologne. “Will you both be there for the baby now that she’s here?” she asks quietly. Dom comes up behind her and sets his beer down on the bar. “One of you might be her godfather.”

“We’ll fight to the death for it,” Arthur assures jokingly. 

“I’d rather gamble, truthfully,” Eames says.

“Okay, we’ll gamble first, and then if one of us wins we’ll fight.”

Eames laughs. “Wanker,” he says fondly.

Mal laughs, too. But she’s gone in moments like the quiet exhalation of air. 

*

Things have changed since Mal became a mother. 

That’s the only way Arthur can put it, really.

*

It’s November. It’s damp and cold outside and there’s a chill in the air that Arthur will never get used to. It’s relatively simple, Arthur thinks, to put things in terms he can force himself to understand.

A few months after Philippa was born, Mal packed up her things and ran. She left Dom with the baby for a month until he followed blindly after. Arthur doesn’t know where they’ve gone, but he doesn’t really care. This is partly due to the fact that he’s overwhelming himself with memories of Limbo but mostly because Eames left, too.

Eames, the chameleon, doesn’t bring a single thing with him. He just drifts away to another life. At least he had had the decency to say goodbye. 

He had gotten out of bed silently, the quiet rustle of sheets the only sound in the room. Arthur had woken from the lack of a solid presence at his back and murmured, “What are you doing?” Eames leaned in, kissed his forehead, and said, “I’m leaving. Go back to sleep.”

Bastard. That bastard. Arthur followed him to the doorway, watched him walk off calmly, purposefully. He’d turned and said goodbye, darling as if they were in the movies. As if they weren’t even real. And he’d just left. He’d slipped through Arthur’s fingers like beach sand. 

*

*

*

It begins with an ocean.

It is cold and Mal is soaked. She sputters and tries to breathe and Dom hauls her up before the final reckoning of a wave, pulls at her arm until they’re safely on shore.

“We’re in Limbo,” Dom says breathlessly. “Jesus Christ, Mal. There’s nothing here.”

Mal looks back over her shoulder, wondering what a bartender and an architect could create in the mind. She smiles, too, because she has a lifetime to spend with Dom and so many memories to recreate. “I’m worried,” she lies. “How do we get out?”

“I don’t know,” Dom shouts, raising his voice over the sound of the waves. “I don’t know.”

*

They grow old together.

Mal thinks there is something very romantic about the wrinkles in Dom’s hands, particularly when he’s holding her. He doesn’t remember who they were before this reality. And if he does, he never says so. Mal watches him with a quiet affection, peppering kisses along his cheek.

One evening, Dom goes for a walk. He does not come back for some length of time that Mal computes simply as too long. 

Those wrinkled hands, delicate and dangerous, hide something away, deep inside of her, and she doesn’t even know it.

*

Eventually, Dom figures it out. Or maybe he really has known this whole time. He lays Mal down gently on the tracks of a railroad and hovers above her for just a moment. Closing his eyes, he presses his lips to her forehead, her nose, just below her chin. 

And Mal – Mal thinks of Arthur and Eames. She thinks of how beautiful it was to hear those defining words from Arthur’s lips.

Two halves of a whole.

She stares at Dom, this time with a sudden fear that this could be ripped away from her. Or maybe this won’t work, in the end. Stepping delicately along a metaphorical tightrope, she realizes she can’t tell if she’s awake or not.

There’s a rumbling sound coming from behind her, getting louder and louder. She thinks back to how she got here, not sure where ‘here’ is anymore. Dom is saying something but he’s making no sound and the rumbling against the tracks is getting closer and closer and closer until she feels her lips move and her bones shake and –

 

*

*

*

She sits up. 

Dom reaches out to touch her, says something about a dream, about an ocean. Mal drops her head in her lap, pushes away when Dom’s fingers brush against her neck. 

Without a word, she gets up and leaves.

Deep down, too deep down for her to notice, something is wrong.

*

For the first two days, she locks herself away in their bedroom and doesn’t come out. There’s something very tragic about the way she feels, bone-deep awful. She feels terrified, too, because she wants to go back to something that may not have been real. 

And yet there’s that incessant feeling of dread because this – this, right here and now – might not be real. That if she lays herself down on a train track or jumps off her Juliet’s balcony she’ll wake up.

Still, she finds it very romantic.

*

It takes less than a week for Dom to panic. In that time, he places a phone call.

“Dom. Hey.”

“I need to talk to you,” Dom says hurriedly. “In person. In private. It’s about –“

“Dreams?” Arthur supplies, in case Dom is unable to say it.

“Yes. It’s important.”

“I’ll make the drive down there. Meet me at Mal’s bar.”

Dom pauses. “You still call it that,” he notes quietly. “She doesn’t work there anymore.”

“I know,” Arthur says, thinking back on how many times he swore he hated her and how many more he fell in love. “She left her mark, though.”

*

“Mal and I were dreaming,” Dom says, taking a sip of his beer. “We were in Limbo.”

Arthur looks down at the table, suddenly interested in the grain of the wood. Eames, he thinks. I miss Eames.

“Oh,” is what he says instead. 

“When we woke up, I checked the PASIV. The compound wasn’t right. Do you think someone could have gotten their hands on it?”

Arthur shakes his head almost carelessly before looking back up. “Was it – did you –“

Dom sighs. “Do you remember when you punched me? I basically told you to get over it. You and Eames. I shouldn’t have.

It was – good. It was good, for a long time. For decades. Mal wanted to stay forever. Jesus Arthur, she didn’t want to leave. I-I told her we couldn’t stay down there. I made us wake up. She isn’t the same now.”

Arthur knows. God, he knows. He knows how badly Mal must want Dom to be with her. How badly she must want to spend every waking moment with him. How she thinks about him even when she doesn’t want to, dreams about him every time she has the misfortune of sleeping. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Arthur asks, fidgeting slightly in his chair because he wishes to God Eames hadn’t left.

“Because I kind of wanted to stay down there, too,” he admits. “But I can’t now. Mal would know.”

“How?”

Dom doesn’t answer him. He pays for both of their beers and has the decency to let Arthur stay the night. Arthur lies awake in the guest room, listening in on the quiet murmurings of a beautiful baby girl.

*

*

*

It takes a year for the two of them (old friends, old criminals) to meet up. As it happens, they’re both still dreaming and for no good reason.

In that time, Mal has had another baby and Dom has found work in the dreamsharing business. Arthur has, too, but it isn’t until they meet in New York that they realize they’re working for each other.

“Arthur,” Dom says a little breathlessly. “I’m – what are you –“

“I’m keeping watch for the dreamers,” he explains. He sets the equipment down by the chairs, pulling his Walkman out afterwards. “I didn’t know you were extracting.”

“I have to,” Dom says. “I need to know how to take information out. It’s important.”

“Sure,” Arthur says, holding one headphone at his ear to test the music out.

“What is that for?” Dom asks. “The music. I know that song, it’s –“

“For the kick. The song is, uh-“ Arthur clears his throat. “It’s Edith Piaf.”

When the others dream, he thinks of Eames. He thinks of how badly, right here and now, he wants to kiss him. He wants Eames to pin him down on the bed and fuck him so hard he can’t see straight. He wants him to leave bruising kisses along his neck, his ribs, that sensitive spot along his side. And then he thinks of how important it was that Dom admitted how much he wanted to stay in Limbo, because Arthur felt that too. And if, perchance, he’d had control over it, would he have regretted it?

No, I regret nothing.

*

Eames comes back to the States only because Arthur asked him to. When he called, he’d made it sound urgent. And it was, yes, but the urgency was really because Arthur missed him. It had been too long. Simply too long.

When Eames knocks hesitantly on his hotel room door, Arthur has to wonder if this is the right thing to do. He swings the door open and watches him, searches for a sign that Eames has missed him just as much.

“Can you believe,” Eames starts, “that we used to hate being apart?” He drops his luggage off in the living room and leans in, both their foreheads touching. “I’m not very romantic about this, but I still hate it. Being apart.”

And then Eames is pushing him, coaxing him to the couch and kissing his neck, his ribs, that sensitive spot along his side. 

“Fuck you,” he breathes, letting Eames pin him down until he feels like he can’t breathe. “I missed you too, you bastard.”

Eames chuckles, the most pleasant sound Arthur’s heard in a year.

*

Afterwards, they talk. They need to. After all, Arthur had a reason for wanting Eames to come back. Well, two.

He takes a cigarette from Eames’ pack and lights it, setting the ashtray in the middle of the table for the both of them to share. “When I met up with Dom, he told me he needed to learn how to extract.”

Eames unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt and rolls up his sleeves. Around his cigarette, he says, “Oh yeah? Haven’t seen the wanker in a year. He’s still with Mal, yes?”

“Yeah,” Arthur nods. “They had another baby, too.”

“Good, good. So back to extraction. Why? Why’s he need to know so badly?”

Arthur crushes the butt of his cigarette and instantly lights up another. He’s stressed. He’s so stressed he can hardly stand it. There’s something very, very important here, between him and Eames, right at their fingertips.

“You’ve heard of inception,” he says, and Eames nods. “I think Dom did it to Mal. And I think he wants to undo it.”

Eames sits up a little straighter, flicking the lighter. “What’d he incept her with?”

“Dom called me a week or so ago and told me Mal’s losing it. They were in Limbo, just like… you know, just like us.”

“With the same result?” Eames asks hesitantly, and Arthur wonders if he feels it too, the ever-present desire to stay together.

“Can’t tell because Mal’s not all there. But here’s the twist,” Arthur adds. He holds up a photograph of the inside of a PASIV. “I read through Miles’ papers on dreamsharing when I visited Dom and Mal. He says that the amount of Somnacin can be molded to achieve a certain effect. For research, it can be molded to result in Limbo if the dreamers are too many levels deep.”

“Yes, yes,” Eames says, blowing out a puff of smoke. “So you’re saying someone toyed with the PASIV before Dom and Mal went under?”

“I’m saying – “ Arthur pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “I’m saying it was Mal, Eames. She knew what it would do. She saw the way we were after we woke up. She wanted what we had, even if we didn’t. She wanted to be us, Eames.”

It doesn’t matter in that moment that Arthur and Eames had been trapped in Limbo due to an accident. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t begin by wanting it. What matters is that they had somehow led by example and Mal wanted to follow them so badly that she jeopardized everything she had in the real world.

Except the real world wasn’t enough, was it? Is it ever?

“Fucksake,” Eames breathes. “But it backfired, yeah? Because Dom incepted her along the way.”

“Exactly.” 

“Did he know what he was doing?”

“I don’t think so,” Arthur admits. “I think he just wanted to fix it. He liked what they had in Limbo, but he knew. He knew the whole time it wasn’t real. Mal didn’t. And now I don’t think she knows if this is real either.”

“She’ll go mad,” Eames murmurs, hands stilling. “She’ll lose her mind.”

“She’ll lose everything if we don’t figure out how to reverse it,” Arthur points out quietly.

*

They keep quiet. Dom, the old friend, the father, the husband, is too far down to have to deal with the guilt of knowing what he did. Arthur knows he’ll realize it anyway. Sooner or later it’ll all come to light.

Arthur changes his hotel reservations from a meager twin standard to a king suite. Eames stays most nights. And when he doesn’t, they still call each other. It’s better this way. Much more durable and sturdy and safe, like the weight of a hand upon making a fist. It’s a little dangerous, too, in a different way, but altogether with the same meaning.

*

Finally, Arthur works up the courage to see Mal, so long as Eames joins him. He wears his nicest suit, flashes his kindest smile, and brings enough tea for the three of them. Mal sits at the breakfast bar, slicing vegetables for a salad when they come in.

“Bonjour Mallorie,” Arthur coos, swooping down to kiss her cheek. “I brought Eames. We haven’t seen you in quite some time, hmm?”

“A lifetime,” Mal notes. “It’s lovely to see you both. We’ve had another baby. His name is James.”

“Dom told us,” Arthur explains. “How are you?” he asks. 

“I’m very much in love,” Mal says quietly. “So in love I can’t stand it. But it bothers me sometimes, how quickly I can forget it.” She pauses and then adds, “How do I know if this is real?”

Eames leans in very close to her, sliding his hand along her jaw and tipping her head up. “This is real, Mal,” he whispers. “Do you remember how Arthur and I were when we woke up? Hmm?” Mal nods. “We just needed to settle a bit. We took a bit of a risk going back to one another, but it’s worked out. We’re gamblers. We just happened to pick the right color on the roulette wheel.”

Mal meets his gaze and her chin trembles, eyes welling up in a weak attempt to keep herself from falling apart. Again. “I haven’t picked the right color, have I, Mr. Eames?”

Eames shakes his head, but not condescendingly. “You still can, though. This is real. You ought to know that it is. Certainly all three of us wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”

Mal pulls away slightly, resuming the cutting of her vegetables. With a trembling hand, she slides her finger along the blade of the knife. “I don’t know if you’re real, either,” she admits. “Please go.”

Arthur tries to move her hand away, tries to gently pry the knife from her fingers. “Mal, we’re trying to help – “

She jerks back, catching Arthur’s forearm with the knife. “GO!” she shouts, screaming until Dom is there, quite suddenly. “Shh, shhh,” Dom breathes, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re okay, Mal. It’s okay.”

Arthur backs away silently, a little fearfully, clutching Eames’ handkerchief (he doesn’t remember Eames handing it to him) to his bleeding arm. 

They leave without another word and drive home in silence, but Eames whispers soothingly as he bandages him up. It’s as romantic as they get these days, but it’s more than enough.

*

Dom calls the next day. “Listen, Eames, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“No need to apologize. It’s been forgotten.”

Eames can hear Dom sigh over the phone and there’s the rustling of paper in the background. “I’ve made reservations for our anniversary,” he says. “It’s tomorrow. We always go to the same hotel, drink the same wine. I like it though. I hope it’ll help.”

“Sure,” Eames nods, though Dom can’t see it. Arthur comes up behind him, resting his head on his shoulder. “Arthur says hello.”

“My regards to both of you, as usual. I’ll let you know if there are any jobs coming up.”

“Don’t worry about that, Dom,” Arthur cuts in. “Mal is our priority. Enjoy your anniversary.”

“Thanks,” Dom says, though it doesn’t sound like he means it, and hangs up.

*

Arthur strips down to his boxers and climbs into bed next to Eames. There’s a quiet pitter-patter of rain against the window and a spot of light and shadows on the ceiling. 

“I’m kind of glad it happened to us, darling,” Eames says, reaching over Arthur to turn out the bedside lamp. “Limbo, I mean. You’re quite lovely now that it’s happened for real.”

The rain still pelts heavily at the window, begging to be let in, to be allowed the chance to drown them. 

Arthur says thank you and isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to respond with. But then he thinks quite vividly of the way Eames’ mouth looks when he says don’t think about elephants and Arthur falls asleep to it.

*

Eames gets the phone call close to midnight. It’s from Arthur’s cell, but he lets him sleep. Quietly, he slips out of bed and messily throws on a white button-down and a jacket. Dom is nearly incoherent, but the message is there, so clear that Eames feels like he can’t breathe. And it’s not for his sake, really. A little bit is. But mostly it’s for Dom and those two quiet children. And for Miles, too. 

“Mal’s dead. Jesus Christ, Eames. She jumped. They think I – “

“Okay, okay. Hush now, yeah? Tell me where you are and I’ll be there.”

*

It isn’t until he’s standing in the lobby of the hospital that he feels like crying. Dom is holding his head in his hands, sobbing honestly and openly. There’s a cold, dead shell in a thin sheet on a hospital bed where Mal should be. He thinks about that damn vase Mal wanted him to steal and how angry he got because she’d had it the whole time. He should have laughed about it. 

“She jumped, Eames,” Dom cries softly, out of the blue. “They made me identify the body.”

“It’s okay,” Eames murmurs weakly, his heart beating wildly in his chest, eyes threatening to well up. 

“She was dead,” Dom shakes his head. “She’s dead. She’s gone. I should have jumped, too.”

“No, no,” Eames says. “Come now, we’ll see Miles and get it all sorted out, hmm?”

Dom sits in that awful, plastic chair for what feels like hours. But finally, he stands, looking like his knees will buckle under the weight of his grief at any moment.

*

Arthur is gone when Eames gets back. But Eames knows where to find him, naturally.

The alley is dark and still damp from the day’s rain. Arthur’s leaning against the brick and smoking, dressed in a black suit, the buttons undone to reveal a white shirt.

“Hey,” Eames says quietly, and when Arthur doesn’t answer, he rests his hands against either side of Arthur’s head, blocking him against the wall. “How do you know?”

Arthur looks down, looking far more vulnerable than Eames can remember ever seeing him. “I called you. I called Dom. Then I called Miles and he told me. She fucking jumped, Eames,” he murmurs.

Eames leans in even closer, prying the cigarette from Arthur’s shaking fingers. “Don’t do this, darling. It isn’t your fault.”

“It isn’t? I’m the one who didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I set up the compound. I’m the reason we ended up in Limbo. What did Mal want, Eames? Huh? She wanted to be us. She thought this whole goddamn time she was dreaming. How is that not my fault?”

Arthur’s cheeks are wet and flushed and Eames doesn’t say a damn word because he knows he looks the same. “If it’s your fault, it’s mine too.”

Arthur goes quiet at that, understanding that this is more than the blame game. This is Eames following after him and Arthur leading the way. This is both of them thinking very purposefully of elephants because they want to. Because they want each other.

“Why are you wearing this?” Eames whispers, smoothing his hand down the front of Arthur’s shirt.

“It’s for the funeral,” he sniffs. “It’s for the fucking funeral.”

Eames pushes his forehead against Arthur’s and presses a kiss against his nose, dropping the cigarette and pulling away just enough to step on the butt with his foot. 

“Wash it first, you’ll smell like smoke.”

“Fuck you,” Arthur says, but with no real meaning. 

*

The funeral is not as lovely as one might think it’d be. For Mal, anyway. There are half as many flowers as Arthur thought there would be and tens of people he’s never seen before. Dom isn’t there and neither are the children. Nor is Miles. In fact, Arthur feels like it’s just the two of them – him and Eames. As it is, his suit doesn’t smell like smoke anymore.

They keep their footing somehow, but Arthur goes home feeling like he’s falling.

*

“I was thinking of going back to Mombasa,” is the first thing Eames says the next day. Arthur’s already dressed and ready to go see Miles, and Eames has just come out of the shower, beater molded against his skin.

“Why?” Is the first thing Arthur thinks to ask. And then, “Don’t.”

“I need to clear my head,” he says, tossing the towel in the laundry hamper. “I can’t keep doing this, Arthur. We’re running circles around each other. Mal is dead. Okay? She’s dead. We need to move on.”

“So moving on means leaving?”

“One person is already dead because of what happened in Limbo. We need to get out while we can. I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.”

Arthur gapes at him. “You’re a fucking coward,” he seethes. 

Inside, he’s thinking don’t leave and please don’t go and just stay for a moment longer.

Eames picks up a duffel bag from inside the closet that looks as if it’s been packed for days. “Mombasa is Cobol’s backyard. I’m going to learn a thing or two and fix this.”

“I don’t want you to fix it,” Arthur says weakly. “We’re okay.”

“Are we? Maybe Cobb was right. Maybe this isn’t healthy.”

“Don’t do this, Eames.”

“I’ve got a flight in the afternoon. I’ll call you to let you know I’ve arrived.”

“Fuck you,” Arthur says again. “Don’t bother.”

*

Eames calls. And even though Arthur doesn’t pick up, Eames still leaves a message.

*

For the first few weeks, Arthur dreams privately. But then, of course, there’s one phone call wedged in between that changes everything, as they usually do. Dom has flown out of the country and he needs Arthur for a job.

This is, naturally, the first time he’s seen Mal since she died, and she’s just as much of a ghost as she ever could have wanted.

Arthur has to shoot her in the head because Dom can’t, and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. He calls Eames that night and verges on bawling his eyes out and screaming at the bastard for leaving him.

“She was lovely, wasn’t she?” Arthur whispers. It’s three in the morning and he’s exhausted, too terrified to fall asleep because he doesn’t know what he’ll wake up to.

“Absolutely lovely,” Eames agrees, and talks to him until Arthur’s asleep on the other line.

*

Very quickly, Arthur becomes accustomed to being Dom’s right-hand man. He organizes the clientele data, sets up meetings with marks, and follows Dom’s leads with any experiments involving compounds. It scares him at first, because neither of them know what the hell they’re getting themselves into. But it never stopped them before, so they keep going. 

Eames becomes a weekly phone call and nothing more. Arthur still hates him sometimes, but only because he isn’t here. Only because he’s there and too far away. He thinks of elephants all the time, not in the literal sense but in the way Eames meant for him to. He thinks of the both of them, shaved of a few years with a bit more vulnerability. How awful it must have been for them to lose themselves in a dream. And how lovely, too, for them to come out of it together.

He calls Eames for the last time in a pub in Ireland. He and Dom are flying out soon for an important business proposition. 

“I miss you, you know,” is how Arthur starts out, because he means it. He really goddamn means it. And even if Eames doesn’t want to hear it, it has to be said.

“Are you drunk?” Eames asks softly.

“Fuck you. I didn’t drink anything yet.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” Arthur repeats. “Depending on how this phone call goes, I might get wasted.”

“I miss you too.”

Arthur goes quiet for a moment, thinking back on the day they woke up, how they spent all that time clutching at each other in a too-small bed because they needed to. 

“I think you should work with Dom and me. Can I tell him you’re available for jobs?”

It’s Eames’ turn to go quiet. He sighs. Arthur imagines he’s rubbing a hand over a stubbled jaw. “The important ones I’ll be available for.”

“They’re all important,” Arthur adds.

“To you.”

“Yeah.”

It’s quiet again for a long time. Arthur stares at the clock and listens in on other people’s conversations. Nothing interesting.

“Well, I have to go,” he says.

“Sure,” Eames says. “Arthur – hey, I’ll be there if you need me to be.” 

It isn’t the most romantic thing Eames has said, but it means a hell of a lot more than Arthur can put into words. Especially right now. Elephants, he thinks, and walks back to his hotel in the rain.

*

*

*

“If I tell you not to think about elephants, what do you think of?” Arthur asks. He leans forward just the slightest and if anyone knew to look for the signs, they could see the way his eyes lose just the slightest bit of light.

Saito says elephants and Arthur pretends to look pleased, but he isn’t. He’s not happy at all until, a day later, Dom tells him they need a forger.

Mombasa, he thinks. Eames is in Mombasa and Dom is going to get him.

It’s the happiest he’s been in weeks.

*

There is a quiet architect with much to give and just as much to take. She reminds Arthur of Mal only in the sense that they’re both very maternal. Mal used to be that way, before.

It began with an ocean, sure, but the Fischer job threatens to drown them in a tsunami of grief. Along the way, Arthur says things like “she was lovely” and “goodnight Mr. Eames” and he can’t trace the origin of that fondness. Doesn’t matter though, because a young heir has a pinwheel in his hand and all of them wait on the shore of Dom’s life.

He doesn’t surface. And when the kick comes, Arthur thinks bitterly that it’s very, very ironic. And also very romantic, just as Mal would have wanted.

*

Dom is in a coma. Arthur pretends he’s not grieving. For a moment, he isn’t. For a moment, Eames is right there, pinning him against the wall like he did in the alleyway. It’s been too long since he’s seen him last, really seen him. He looks good.

“I missed you,” Arthur murmurs.

“You’re too sad these days,” Eames says. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“It’s my fault, remember?”

“Fucksake, Arthur, it’s our fault.” 

Eames pauses. He brushes his thumb over Arthur's cheek and then says, "I missed you too."

There’s a lot for Arthur to be unhappy about. A lot. Mal is gone (she’s dead, Jesus Christ, she’s dead) and Dom is stuck somewhere in a dream he doesn’t want to leave. He’s worried. Arthur is terribly, horribly worried about everything. But Eames is here. Eames. He’s centimeters from his face and always an arm’s length away when he needs him to be. They’re still two halves of a whole, aren’t they? Mal knew that best. Beautiful, lovely, confused Mal.

“Arthur,” Eames murmurs, the word stretched taut and verging on the tremble of a stutter. "What are you thinking about?"

Elephants, he thinks, and lets Eames kiss him.

fin.


End file.
